*Fancy* Balsamic Walnut Salad

This salad is inspired by, and dedicated to, a much loved pub I once frequented in Egham that no longer exists. The Monkey’s Forehead offered many a delicacy to the students of Royal Holloway and to the locals who were lucky enough to call it home. Normally, I would never recommend ordering a salad at a pub in England — it’ll be disgusting, over-priced, and you’ll have to munch on your lettuce as you stare sadly at everyone else enjoying delicious burgers and such.

But this salad is not like other salads. It is a classic Greek salad’s annoying posh friend, willing to pay £2.65 in Waitrose for a mere handful of walnuts. Besides being tasty and *fancy*, this salad is also incredibly easy to throw together. It’s a great option for an elegant-feeling** packed lunch.

A note on lettuce: I usually use some kind of leaf mix when making this, but it also works well with pre-chopped kale. You’ll just need to make sure to *massage* the kale a bit before you eat it or pack it for lunch. This helps it soften enough that it is pleasant to eat. Using kale is also a definite bonus if you’re packing your lunch! Kale is a robust lettuce and can handle you putting dressing on it as you pack your lunch at 8am, and it won’t be soggy by the time you eat your salad at 1pm. That’s definitely handy if you, like me, struggle to figure out good ways to bring a single-serving of salad dressing with you to school/work/the world outside your house.

** If you haven’t already figured it out, I think adding walnuts to a dish adds instant class and sophistication. I think the world of them. This is one of my Ultimate Cooking Hacks: add walnuts, make ’em go nuts.

Serves 1.

Ingredients

• 1 bag of mixed-leaf lettuce of your choosing.
• 1/2 of a red onion, sliced into thin strips.
• 1 handful of vine ripe, plum, or grape tomatoes.
• 1/3 of a cucumber, sliced into rounds.
• The corner of a block of feta cheese, crumbled into sprinklable-sized pieces.
• 1 handful of walnuts, crumbled or crushed into quarters of their original size.
• Honey balsamic or balsamic salad dressing of your choosing.
• Optional: 1 spoonful of sliced black olives.

Instructions

1. Wash and slice your cucumber, red onion, and tomatoes.
2. Prepare your lettuce. I like using bagged lettuce as it’s usually pre-washed, but check your bag or plastic box and follow the instructions accordingly. If you wash your lettuce, make sure to pat it dry with paper towel after. Place your lettuce into a bowl that fits it comfortably, otherwise you will have a Big Problem on your hands later on.
3. Add the cucumber, red onion, and tomatoes on top of your lettuce base. Use as much red onion as you like — I love red onion and will frequently add what the average person would consider to be a life-ruining level of onion. If you like less, use less.
4. Crumble your feta cheese over the vegetables. If you crumble your corner of feta and you feel like there’s not enough cheese for your liking, feel free to add a bit more.
5. Drizzle your balsamic salad dressing over the salad. As with the feta cheese and red onion before, if you like a bit more salad dressing on your salad, don’t be ashamed/afraid to add a little extra.
6. Crush or crumble your walnuts over the top of your salad. Feel opulent as you are doing it.
7. Optional: Evenly distribute your sliced black olives over the top of your salad. I was going to say ‘sprinkle your sliced black olives’, but you don’t really sprinkle olives, I feel like they’re a bit too dense for that.
8. Enjoy!